Inspiration boards at work

Inspiration boards will be familiar to anyone working in advertising or fashion. They’re a great way of aesthetically representing the core idea of a campaign, collating references and ideas. Oftentimes, mood boards are used to present ideas to clients. They’re also useful when it comes to initial planning stages – when lightning strikes and you have a “Eureka!” moment that needs to be fleshed out.

The key idea behind an inspiration board – to pictorially represent what you’re aiming to craft and create – can also be applied on a personal level. Creating a personal mood board – a vision of what your ideal life would look like – can prove to be incredibly motivating.

All you really need to begin with is a cork board (or even some cardboard), some sort of adhesive equipment (glue, staples, pins, tape) and a capitalist spirit. And who doesn’t have those?

To fill the board with images, there’s a question you need to ask yourself: “what do I want out of life?”. The answer will probably be a mixture of experiences, possessions and emotions.

Leaf through some magazines or search online for appropriate pictures. Perhaps there’s a particular item that you’re desperately saving for; a $10,000 handbag, or some Classic Car Investments. If this is the case, these are exactly the sorts of objects that should feature on your mood board.

Inspiration boards should straddle idealism and pragmatism. While it’s all well and good to slap a picture of Kensington Palace onto the cork, it’s (relatively) unlikely that Prince Harry will be asking for your hand in marriage any time soon. Semi-realistic visions are your best bet, encouraging you to work just that little bit harder to push fantasy into the realm of reality.

The media – especially high-end publications like Vogue and Vanity Fair – thrive off aspiration. This same attitude can be channeled in an inspiration board by asking yourself where you’d like to be in five or ten years. Inevitably, the answer will be “somewhere better than here” – not only in terms of your working situation, but your personal life, too. Think about connections between your goals and some beautiful objects that can adorn your board; Luxury Classic And Vintage Car Investments Australia could help improve your financial situation, and you might represent this desire by pasting a timeless vehicle onto your board.

Any workplace is, at times, inevitably stressful. A vision of your idealised life could help you to overcome short-term frustrations by gaining some perspective; ‘short term pain for long term gain’, and all that. In the midst of a crisis in the workplace, re-orienting yourself and focusing on your goal – whether it’s to move to a sleepy English village or to dabble in classic car investments In Australia, UK, and the USA – will help you to take a deep breath and lessen stress levels.

Not everything on the board needs to be specific, of course. Just like objects can be symbolic of a different attributes, so a rather general picture – say a far-reaching field inhabited only by animals, with the sun peeping over the horizon – might represent a sense of internal peace and tranquility to you. The beauty of a mood board (especially if you’re using the cork and pin option) is that there’s no sense of finality. Should your aspirations change due to personal circumstance or epiphanies, you can chop and change your images – literally.